


aftermath

by relationshipcrimes



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, No Tags! Extremely Clean and Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29179050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: "Your indecisiveness on the matter is essentially a betrayal of my wishes."
Comments: 10
Kudos: 122





	aftermath

**February 3 rd, 2021, 3:04 AM**

**Haru** : Good morning, Akira!

 **Akira** : It sure is technically morning

 **Akira** : How was your 2/2 anniversary

 **Haru** : I have been thinking to myself.

 **Haru** : If my father was real in Maruki’s reality, and he was truly alive and not simply a cognition...

 **Haru** : If he was a person brought back to life...

 **Haru** : Does that mean that I murdered him by choosing to leave Maruki’s reality?

 **Akira** : So... your 2/2 was bad

 **Haru** : Hahaha

 **Haru** : Well! Is there any such thing as a good 2/2?

 **Akira** : I don’t think it matters if it was murder

 **Haru** : Well, not now, it doesn’t.

 **Haru** : Not in terms of effect, since the outcome will always be the same no matter how much I regret.

 **Haru** : But don’t intentions matter for something?

 **Akira** : They do

 **Haru** : Then maybe... I should have asked my father what he wanted.

 **Haru** : It was his life, after all.

 **Haru** : It’s not like it was my life to give away. Maybe deciding whether my father would continue to live wasn’t my decision to make after all.

 **Haru** : Why didn’t we think of that?

 **Haru** : Why didn’t we ask the people that we’ve lost, “Someone gave you your life back, but at the cost of your free will. What would you want?”

 **Akira** : The problem is in your own question

 **Haru** : Oh my.

 **Haru** : Were you always this smart?

 **Haru** : Or were you just hiding it all this time...?

 **Akira** : Are you saying I was dumb when I was in high school

 **Haru** : Didn’t you take showers when it was raining because someone told you an urban legend that it’d make you more charming...?

 **Akira** : I had someone to impress... I was desperate

 **Akira** : And it did make me more charming I have eyewitness accounts

 **Akira** : Either way

 **Akira** : Your father might have been truly alive, and he might have “died” because he was technically alive,

 **Akira** : But it doesn’t mean that he was free to make his own decisions

 **Akira** : He was still a part of Maruki’s reality so we can't even know if he would have been able to say things that he really believed

 **Akira** : There’s no guarantee that asking him what he wanted would have meant he could say what he wished

 **Haru** : Do you actually believe that?

 **Akira** : Hmm

 **Akira** : I believe we made our choices

 **Haru** : I still wish I’d thought to ask what his wishes were.

 **Haru** : Even once.

 **Haru** : Even if he wasn’t truly at liberty to say what he would have meant if Maruki wasn’t in control of that reality.

 **Haru** : Even if it wouldn’t have changed anything, so I could feel less indecisive now.

 **Akira** : I’m sure that the father that you loved would have trusted you to make that decision for him

 **Haru** : It’s not the same.

 **Haru** : Trust isn’t the same as actually knowing.

 **Haru** : I’m sorry... there’s nothing that can be done about this now.

 **Haru** : I suppose it must be tiring to hear about my indecision so many years later.

 **Akira** : No

 **Akira** : I think sometimes about all the people in the entire world who were brought back to life by Maruki

 **Akira** : All the people in jobs they hated who wound up doing what they loved

 **Akira** : All the people with terminal illnesses who were cured

 **Akira** : All the kids who were saved from foster systems or juvie

 **Akira** : If you really think about it,

 **Akira** : We’re the ones who put them back in horrible life conditions

 **Akira** : Because we made the decision that free will was more important than their happy lives.

 **Haru** : ...How long have you thought about it that way?

 **Akira** : I think I thought about it when I moved back to Inaba

 **Akira** : I was just sitting around watching the Tatsumis go out of business one day

 **Akira** : And I thought “Maybe that’s my fault”

 **Akira** : “This wouldn’t have happened if we were still in Maruki’s reality. It was my decision that caused this”

 **Haru** : Maybe we should have asked the Tatsumis before we decided to oppose Maruki.

 **Akira** : Maybe we should have asked everyone in Tokyo

 **Haru** : Everyone in Japan, perhaps.

 **Akira** : Yeah only Japanese people get a say in whether they get free will

 **Haru** : I guess we’ll just have to ask everyone in the world!

 **Akira** : Yeah that sounds very doable

 **Haru** : When I go to sleep tonight and wake up,

 **Haru** : Maybe I’ll wake up on February 3rd and read the morning news full of muggings and missing persons and failing economies and I’ll think,

 **Haru** : “This is my fault.”

 **Akira** : Maybe it is

 **Akira** : Again I don’t think it matters

 **Akira** : Or at least there’s no use in being indecisive now

 **Haru** : Do you think it’s your fault?

 **Akira** : I don’t know

 **Akira** : But like I said I don’t think it matters

 **Haru** : You never have moments of doubt about whether you did the right thing?

 **Haru** : When you saw the Tatsumis shutting down their business, you never had even the slightest moment of indecision?

 **Akira** : No

 **Haru** : Oh.

 **Haru** : I see.

 **Akira** : People died to make this world possible

 **Akira** : I'm just trying to be respectful to what they gave up

 **Haru** : Trying or not,

 **Haru** : That’s quite arrogant of you, Akira.

 **Haru** : After all, it’s not like we asked them if they wanted to die for the sake of free will.

 **Akira** : There’s nothing else I can do

 **Akira** : The decision is irreversible

 **Akira** : The people we lost to Maruki’s reality will stay gone

 **Akira** : All we can do is make sure that this world with free will was worth it in the end

 **Haru** : A world in which the Tatsumis go out of business.

 **Akira** : This world might be kind of shitty,

 **Akira** : But it’s the world that people we loved gave their lives for

 **Akira** : That’s what this world means to me.

 **Haru** : A world we murdered our loved ones for?

 **Akira** : That’s what we decided our justice would mean

 **Haru** : You really think that I killed my father?

 **Akira** : Do you want the truth

 **Haru** : Of course. Always.

 **Akira** : Then I guess I do

 **Haru** : I see.

 **Haru** : Do you believe that you killed Akechi?

 **Akira** : Why are you complaining

 **Haru** : This has been much food for thought, Akira.

 **Haru** : I think... it’s quite late.

 **Haru** : And that I should sleep.

 **Akira** : Probably

 **Haru** : When I wake up tomorrow, it’ll be the morning of February 3rd...

 **Haru** : I wonder what sort of world I will see?

 **Haru** : A world that I love as much as I miss my father, or a world that I will regret for the rest of my life?

 **Akira** : Pretty sure that the world will go on either way

 **Haru** : That is not untrue!

 **Haru** : Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

 **Akira** : Of course anytime

 **Haru** : Good night, Akira.

 **Akira** : Good night Haru

 **Akira** : See you in the morning

**February 3 rd, 2021, 3:56 AM**

**Haru** : Akira?

 **Akira** : Yeah

 **Haru** : Are we still friends?

 **Akira** : Of course

 **Haru** : I'm glad.

 **Haru** : See you in the morning, Akira.


End file.
